Fired D.E.I. Administrator Rachel Dawson Sues the University of Michigan

U.S.|Fired D.E.I. Administrator Sues the University of Michigan

A Black administrator who was fired by the University of Michigan has sued the school, accusing it of racial and gender discrimination in its investigation of whether she made antisemitic comments.

Rachel Dawson, the former director of the university’s office of academic multicultural initiatives, denied in her lawsuit that she had made antisemitic remarks last year.

Two Jewish professors from other universities had accused Ms. Dawson of saying in a private conversation that the university was “controlled by wealthy Jews,” that Jewish students were not in need of her office’s diversity services because they are “wealthy and privileged” and that “Jewish people have no genetic DNA that would connect them to the land of Israel,” according to documents that were part of a complaint from the Anti-Defamation League of Michigan.

In her lawsuit, filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Ms. Dawson painted a starkly different version of events. And she said that there was racial bias in what she called the unusual process that the public university used to investigate the complaint and in its decision to side with her accusers.

“Historically, Black women have been subjected to stereotypes that portray them as confrontational or untrustworthy,” Ms. Dawson wrote during a disciplinary review, according to her lawsuit.

A lawyer for Ms. Dawson, Amanda M. Ghannam, said she would file another lawsuit in state court, which will claim that the university violated Ms. Dawson’s free speech and due process rights. Under Michigan law, those claims against a state institution cannot be brought in federal court, Ms. Ghannam said.